


Give Me an L-O-V-E

by kaci3PO



Series: L-O-V-E verse [1]
Category: Fired Up! (2009)
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-02
Updated: 2011-07-02
Packaged: 2017-10-20 23:28:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 20,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/218272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaci3PO/pseuds/kaci3PO
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After hooking up at cheer camp, Nick and Downey spent the following school year meeting up on weekends to have sex. But now that they're back at camp and staring college and the future in the eye, Nick's got to learn how to be a real boyfriend and how to finally let himself fall in love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for smallfandom because someone seriously needed to fix the ending of that movie. Picks up immediately after the credits scene involving Nick, Diora, and Coach Keith.

"Hey, man."

Nick winces at the sight of Shawn and Carly cuddling in a lawn chair outside of their dormitory. Since when is Shawn a cuddler?

"You're lost to me," he mutters.

"You're back soon," Shawn observes with no small sense of amusement.

"Coach Keith showed up. It got awkward."

"Well," Carly pipes up. She's grinning in a way that's a little unsettling and Nick tries not to flinch. "There's someone waiting for you in the dorm."

"Is that where Diora got to? Pretty smart of her. Hiding in plain sight. I dig it."

"Carly," Shawn says, "maybe we should go for a walk. Leave Nick and...his visitor alone."

"Yeah," Nick advises her. "You do _not_ want to hear the sounds that are going to be coming out of that room."

"I'm sure I don't," Carly agrees, and threads her fingers through Shawn's as they start off down the path.

Nick shakes his head at them, at his Shawn who has become a totally different person, and slips into the dorm.

"Diora?" he calls through the room. "Diora, where'd you get—"

He flicks the lights on and there, sitting on his bed, is Downey where Diora should be.

"Oh. Downey. Hey. You seen Diora? Shawn said she was waiting here for me."

"Actually, he said someone was waiting for you. Me."

And that feeling that happens whenever he's around Downey, that uncomfortable feeling in his stomach that he promises himself isn't homophobia—he's more enlightened than that, really, he's too cool to hate gays, it makes him _smart_ not to—flares up, making him feel like his stomach is twisting into knots.

"Oh. So...what's up?"

"I talked to Shawn while you were out."

"You—you did?"

"Yeah. He came to me, okay? I didn't—I wasn't going to press."

"What'd he say?"

"He told me that he...he thinks that I should go for it with you."

"What? Shawny? No, no. You must've misunderstood, because Shawn—"

"Told me you told him that hooking up with girls was supposed to feel wrong."

"Well...yeah, 'cause—'cause society—"

"It's not supposed to feel wrong, Nick."

"Well—"

"Nick, if you're really not into me, I'll leave you alone, but I just get the feeling—you asked for my beads, man."

"I told you," Nick says, turning away from Downey altogether, "I thought they were a bracelet."

"Then why did you want them? Why did you put them in your mouth?"

"I thought...I thought they looked interesting. And...and I like to have things in my mouth, okay?"

Downey stares at him like he doesn't need to say anything else.

"Not like that," Nick snaps. "I just like to have things to suck on, okay?"

Downey continues to stare.

"God, will you get your mind out of the gutter? I can't be gay, okay? If I were gay, then my stomach wouldn't get all...fluttery when I'm around you."

"Nick, that's _exactly_ what would happen if you liked me."

"Downey, you got it all wrong, man. If you want to get laid, go talk to Brewster, okay? He's into that."

"I don't like Brewster. I like you. And I—I know you like me, too."

"Look, Shawn was probably just pulling a prank on me and—"

He stops when he feels Downey behind him, standing close enough for Nick to sense him but not close enough to actually touch.

"Nick, I know that closet has to be suffocating."

He turns back, ready to hit or yell or something angry but he ends up just staring. Downey's still in his uniform and okay, it's hideous but it really does bring out his eyes.

"Relax," Downey says softly. "I'm not going to do anything you don't want me to."

"You're still talking. I don't want you to talk anymore."

"Okay. I won't talk."

Downey takes a step forward and then he's actually in Nick's personal space, close enough to rest one hand on Nick's hip.

"I don't like man-to-man touching," he says around a dry throat.

"That's called internalized homophobia. And overcompensating."

"I'm not homophobic. I'm not. That feeling I get...it's not homophobia."

"Do you get it around Brewster?"

"No, not at all, which is why it isn't—"

"But you got it around me even before Shawn told you I was gay."

Nick blinks. "Oh. Well, yeah—"

"Then it's not homophobia," Downey agrees.

"I like hooking up with girls," Nick insists.

"Yeah? You do? What's your favorite part about that?"

"W—what do you mean?"

"When you're with a girl, what's your favorite part? The kissing? The fucking? The—"

"Well, I...I like blowjobs."

Downey nods, and the corners of his lips turn up in a smirk. "So you'd rather have your cock sucked than actually fuck a girl. You know why that is?"

"Because I don't have to do anything? I can just relax and get my dick sucked?"

"No. Because you don't have to look at her. You don't have to feel her. You don't even have to acknowledge that she's there or a she at all."

"Why—why are you going Freud on my dick, Downey?"

"Because sometimes someone has to take an ax to the closet door before it can open."

And the worst part is that his hand is still on Nick's hip, only he's slipped his fingers under Nick's shirt to stroke across his bare skin. It's making his stomach tighten and he feels lightheaded and sick.

"Downey—"

"I'm going to kiss you, okay? And I don't want you to freak out."

"I promise you, you kiss me and I'm freaking out."

"Yeah," Downey admits, but he leans in anyway.

There's half a second where Nick knows he can get away, can turn away from this and just run the fuck away. And he seriously considers it, too. It's probably what he _should_ do.

But he doesn't and Downey uses his free hand to guide Nick into the kiss, to tilt his head and cup his face. And it's actually...not bad. It's almost... _good_.

"Okay," Downey says. "This is the part where you freak out."

Nick touches his lips with two shaking fingers before murmuring, "I—wha—."

"Are you having a stroke?" Downey asks seriously.

"Yes?"

"I'm not that good of a kisser, Nick."

"I'm flailing."

"You're also talking in non-sequiturs and incoherent mumbles," Downey points out. "Are you okay?"

"No."

He feels as though his brain has completely checked out because all he can do is watch as Downey leans in to kiss him again, and this time his lips part without his permission and Downey's tongue strokes his. On instinct, he grips Downey's shoulder tightly and Downey makes a soft noise of encouragement before kissing him again.

 _We are kissing. We—we are kissing_ , the voice in his head chants, only slightly hysterically.

Downey's bed is closer than his and Downey guides him down onto it. He panics and tries to get back up, but Downey holds him firmly until he stops struggling and stays still.

"Relax," Downey insists. "I'm not doing anything that you don't want."

"I really need to be drunk for this," Nick mutters.

"No. You really don't. Because if you are, then you'll always blame it on that."

"I—I have to blame it on something."

"You want it," Downey murmurs. He presses a soft kiss to Nick's neck before tugging his shirt off and sliding one hand across his bare chest. "And I really want you."

"Jesus, Downey. How the fuck can you say that?"

"I've got a talented tongue," Downey says as though that were an answer, and then proves it by flicking said tongue against his nipple until he's gripping the comforter with both hands and trying to remember that he's so completely hetero he can do this and still be straight.

And he believes that, because it's true. He's so straight that he can enjoy this and still—

He's cut off on that train of thought when Downey kisses him again, taking him off-guard. He reacts by kissing him back on instinct and he feels Downey smile against his lips.

"Downey—Downey, hey."

"Hmm?"

Downey's lips are red and plump from kissing and that feeling in Nick's stomach redoubles its efforts as he stares at them, unable to look away.

"What are we doing? What—what are you going—"

"Nothing you don't—"

"No. No, I need specifics. I need—I need information."

"If I tell you, you'll just panic about it."

"Then let me panic."

"Nick, would I do something you didn't want?"

"No."

"Then stop thinking, okay?"

"But—"

Another kiss, one that sends him reeling onto his back while Downey breaks it to tug off his own shirt. The feeling of Downey's chest against his own, skin-to-skin in the cool night air, takes his breath away and Christ, he's actually getting hard from this.

Downey's fingers comb through his hair and Nick groans beneath him. It feels—fuck, it feels really good and it doesn't feel _wrong_ like it does with girls.

Downey's free hand smoothes down his chest and stops, just inches above his denim-covered cock, and Nick arches up against him trying to get friction.

"Say you want me to," Downey murmurs. "I need your permission, Nick."

"Downey—"

"Just tell me that you want it."

God, how can Downey ask him to say this? How can he make Nick admit that he wants a guy to touch him this way? How can—fuck, how can he deny that request?

"I—" he grits his teeth and manages to complete that sentence with, "want it."

And Downey's hand is on him instantly, just like that, stroking him through his pants better than any chick ever has.

"You're so fucking hot, Nick. God, I've wanted to do this for so long. I think you have, too. Not always with me, but I think you've wanted someone to do this with you for years."

He can't figure out a way to answer that without seriously incriminating himself so he just arches up into Downey's hand and tries to pretend like that's somehow better.

Downey stops stroking him then and he bites back a whimper of frustration until he realizes that it's because Downey is undoing his fly and tugging his jeans down his hips. He lifts himself up to help get them off and then, fuck, then Downey's actually touching him flesh on flesh and he's licking his lips and Nick doesn't dare hope that Downey's about to do what he thinks he's about to do.

Only then he _does_ and Jesus Christ on a shiny stick, Nick hears himself begging Downey for more before he even realizes he's started talking.

He's too busy resisting the urge to fuck Downey's mouth to notice that Downey's groping blindly under his bed until he hears the click of a bottle of lube and he scrambles backwards, nearly falling off the other side of the bed in the process.

"Nick—"

"No. No way, man."

"Nick, if we were on the same squad, would you let me catch you if you were doing a toss?"

"You can catch all you want, but I'm sure as hell not doing it."

"Just answer the question."

Nick sighs. "Well...yeah, I guess."

"So you trust me to make sure you don't get hurt?"

"Yeah, but what's—oh."

"I'm not going to hurt you. I'm just going to show you what those beads are really used for."

"What _are_ they used for?"

"If you'll let me, I'll show you."

"And it doesn't hurt?"

"No. I promise. It feels really good."

And it's that feeling again, the one where he could run or he could stay and even though his head is telling him to run, the rest of him wants to stay right where he is.

"Okay," he says. "But if I want you to stop—or if it hurts—"

"I know. I will."

"What do I have to do?"

"Just lay still and let me suck your cock, okay?"

Nick can do that and fuck, blowjobs have always been his favorite thing but now they're better, hotter somehow, and he can't help but run his fingers through Downey's hair while he watches him work.

But then he hears that click again and his body tenses and he wants to run. Downey sucks him harder and smoothes his fingers across Nick's thighs and he tries so fucking hard to just relax. It's not like no girl has ever touched him there before. It was only the once but that sort of thing sticks with a guy long after he forgets the girls name or face and all he remembers is that it hurt and it never stopped until she finally took her finger out.

He knows Downey knows what he's doing a lot more than she did but that fear is still there, still telling him that there's no way he can enjoy this, gay or no, because it fucking _hurt_.

"Nick, hey. Hey. Look at me."

"Downey—"

"Don't be nervous, okay? You trust me for a reason, right?"

"Yeah."

Downey nods and Nick can't not watch as he slicks up two of his fingers and lowers his lips back down onto Nick's cock.

His body is thrumming with nervous anticipation until one of those fingers nudges at him, slow circling _pushpulltease_ until he feels himself giving, until Downey slips that finger in with ease.

It doesn't hurt, just like Downey promised, and he finds himself rocking down onto Downey's finger as he fucks him with it. It's so much better than it was with the girl, maybe because she didn't have real lube or maybe just because Downey knows how to make this good, but he doesn't mind it at all. He could actually get used to this.

"Jesus, Downey," he groans, and he gets no response at all other than a twist of that finger that makes him pant with want. He wants that other finger and he wants those beads, and whatever else Downey has in store for him, he's pretty sure he'll at least give it a try.

The second finger presses beside the first, not hard enough to enter but enough to leave him gasping and biting his lip to keep from begging Downey to finger-fuck him harder. It's utterly ridiculous how much he wants this, but he's pretty sure it's all Downey's fault. Or maybe Shawn's for telling Downey to go for this. It's definitely one of them, but it honestly doesn't fucking matter.

"Downey—come on. Don't—"

"Don't do this?"

"No, fuck, don't—come on."

Downey's eyes lock on his as he pushes that second finger inside and God, it leaves him trembling as he tries to regain control.

"Jesus, fuck—" he groans.

Downey curls his fingers against his prostate and Nick arches his hips up off the bed and slams them down hard onto Downey's fingers. It leaves them further inside him than Downey had them but he doesn't care. He spreads his legs and rocks down against them, not caring how this looks or what he'll think of himself in the morning for having done this. It just feels good and he's always been an immediate gratification sort of guy.

"Downey, I—I—Jesus, this is—"

He's trying to find the pretty words he writes in his diary, but they're just not coming to him now and Downey is grinning at him like he's the best thing since sliced bread.

He's considering asking Downey to fuck him—God, where the hell is that coming from?—when Downey's fingers leave him feeling empty and he actually, honest-to-God-whines.

"Downey—"

"I'm just getting the beads," he murmurs, and sure enough then there's pressure again and something slips inside him all at once.

"What—"

"Just stay still okay?"

"What do they _do_?"

Downey chuckles. "You'll see. Just let me do this, okay? You'll like it."

And he does like the feel of each little bead popping into him, so he nods and lets Downey do his thing. One by one, the beds slip into him and then Downey's sucking his cock again like it's the best thing he's ever tasted and he wants to devour Nick whole.

He's so close to coming and he's not sure if that's okay, if those beads will be safe or what, but surely Downey can tell and he's not stopping, he's just sucking and licking and pressing that fucking talented tongue of his against the head of his cock and then—

Fuck. Just...fuck.

Then he's teetering on the edge and just as he starts to fall, Downey grips the end of those beads and _pulls_. Nick will never be sure exactly what happens next but when his vision finally stops swimming, Downey is looking triumphant behind a come-stained smile and patting his thigh gently.

"So...better than a bracelet?" Downey asks, so completely amused.

"Y—yeah. God. Yes."

Downey nods and licks at his lips absently. "I really want to fuck you."

"O—oh."

"And if we weren't leaving camp tomorrow morning, I'd say we should wait," Downey murmurs. "I don't want to make you feel rushed. And we can wait, if you want. I mean...we can visit each other, right? But—"

"No."

"No? No, we shouldn't wait? No, we can't visit each other?"

"No, I don't want to wait."

And then Downey's kissing him and Nick scrunches his nose up at the taste of his own come but God, Downey may not be a good enough kisser to make him stroke out, but he's still really, really good.

"I'm gonna make this so good for you," Downey promises. "I am, Nick. I'm gonna make you love this, okay? Don't be scared. It's good. It's so fucking good—"

"Okay. Okay, I—Downey—"

Downey kisses him gently before he picks up the lube again and gets his fingers slick and ready. He hitches Nick's leg up until he can reach his entrance and the first two fingers slip inside him so fucking easy. It feels good and he shifts, allowing Downey better access, and sighs into another kiss.

"So fucking hot," Downey murmurs. "So fucking close to being ready for me. Gonna kick down that fucking closet door, okay? Gonna tear it down with my bare hands and—"

Nick doesn't even expect it himself when he interrupts Downey's tirade about his closet door by gasping, "More."

Downey obliges with another finger and it's not so much pain as it is burning, like the feeling he gets when he's worked out too hard and his muscles are sore. It doesn't feel like actual _pain_ then; it feels like a burning looseness and exhaustion, and that's what this feels like now. He groans, head falling back, and Downey's hand closes around his cock.

He's pretty sure he's not ready to go again just yet but it feels good anyway, so he lets Downey stroke him lightly. It gives him something to think about other than the stretched-out feeling and he relaxes into it, letting Downey fuck him with those three fingers.

"God," Downey groans, eyes locked on his fingers disappearing into Nick. "I imagined, but I never thought you'd be so good at this."

"Not—not really doing anything."

Downey chuckles and drags his fingers across Nick's prostate.

"Trust me, you're good at this. And you're going to be fucking amazing."

"Downey, I—I _want_."

"I know you do. I have known."

"Then don't fucking—just do it already."

"No. I promised you I'd make sure this didn't hurt."

"But—"

He cuts himself off when Downey's pinkie finger presses in beside the first three and he groans, legs falling open in what has to be the gayest move he's ever made. But the crazy part is knowing that it's not over—it's not even close—and it can only get gayer from here.

His theory about being able to win the straight award is starting to show some weaknesses. He's pretty sure he could suck cock and still get it, but this? That one's harder to believe.

"I've wanted you since the day I met you," Downey murmurs. "And I want to make sure it's as good as you deserve."

"Please. Now?"

Downey nods and Nick moans at the loss of those fingers filling him up until he realizes it's only temporary while Downey shucks off his uniform pants and pulls a condom out from under the bed.

His stomach flutters while he watches Downey put it on, but in a different way than before. It's a good flutter and it's so good that he can't even deny that it's good like he tried to with the flutters he got when he was around Downey before.

Downey kneels between his spread legs and hooks them around his waist. Nick feels like a total girl like this and he tells Downey so, but Downey just shakes his head and palms his cock.

"Trust me, you are definitely all man," he says, and he shifts just enough to line himself up at Nick's entrance. He presses forward carefully and Nick can feel his body relax and open up to let Downey in, and it's the craziest fucking feeling he's ever had in his life. But God, it's so _good_.

"Oh, God," he groans, and Downey nods, so still and silent that it's almost freaky. "Downey—Christ, Downey, I—"

It feels like hours that Downey is working into him, opening him up and sliding inside, but it's probably only a matter of minutes. He doesn't care, though. Not really. He can't because his brain has officially shut off and all there is to deal with is just Downey so far inside him he feels like his lungs can't expand properly because Downey's cock is taking up that space and Downey kissing him so deeply that he just goes with it, just lets this happen because for maybe the first time in his life, sex feels _right_.

"Jesus," Downey breathes against his skin, and then he rocks into Nick experimentally. He feels himself clench around Downey's cock and Downey gasps, goes still, and tangles his fingers in Nick's hair. "God, you feel so fucking good."

"You—you, too. Fuck, Downey."

Being fucked turns out to be a whole different ballgame than doing the fucking. The mechanics are backwards and even different from how he imagines it is with girls, but there's one advantage of this guy thing that turns out to be pretty fucking amazing.

With girls, he's always afraid they'll break. He read somewhere once that pussies are only so many inches deep and yeah, he likes to over-flatter himself but he always wondered what would happen if his cock was too big and he tried to force it in there anyway. And it built up this irrational fear in his head that he'd actually, seriously break the girl and it was just...not good. Not good at all.

But now? Now he knows he's not going to break and he knows Downey's not either, so when he gasps out, "Harder," and Downey obeys, it's...it's a little rough and a lot of solid, hard muscle against hard muscle, and that's how he wants it. He wants to go rough or have someone go rough on him and he doesn't want his irrational fears about fucking _pussy depth_ popping into his head when he's trying to get laid.

It's all technical with girls. All do this in the exact right way and maybe she'll make that certain noise. It's like trying to work one of those Chinese puzzles with all the numbers or whatever they're called and it's fucking hard work. But this? This is easy and it's messy and it's all feeling and no thought. And Downey keeps telling him how fucking hot he is like this and how he'd come watch the Tigers practice sometimes just to see Nick's moves.

And at the mention of cheering again, that crazy voice in his head starts up, _We are fucking. We—we are fucking_ , and he laughs into a kiss until he's breathless and so close to coming a second time that his laughter dies off in his throat.

"Downey—"

"Yeah," Downey gasps. "Yeah, Nick...fuck, come for me, okay? Fuck, I want to see you this time. Want—"

And it's so easy to come like this, too, kissing Downey and looking into his eyes and seeing the desire there. He comes hard, leaving a sticky mess between their bellies, and he swallows Downey's groan when he follows Nick over the edge.

When Downey pulls out of him to throw away the condom, he actually kind of misses that full feeling even though he bites his lip not to say it. He sighs and shifts, trying to get comfortable, though that's starting to seem more and more impossible by the second.

"You okay?" Downey asks. "I didn't hurt you?"

"I'm okay," he says. "A little...I don't know."

"Squirmy?"

"Yeah."

Downey nods. "It'll go away soon. But you...you're okay? You're not upset?"

"Upset?"

"Yeah. I mean...your manly pride isn't destroyed or whatever?" There's a hint of a verbal eye-roll in his question that's pretty hard to ignore.

"My manly pride is extremely hard to even put a scratch on," Nick insists.

Downey nods and settles down beside him on the bed, not quite touching him.

"I know this seems a little...stupid after that. And maybe a little presumptuous, too, but...after we go home, I'd really like to take you out sometime."

"Are you asking me to long-distance gay-date you?"

"Yeah. If that's okay."

Nick considers that, then nods. "Yeah. That's cool."

Downey nods. "Good. I don't know what I'd have done if you said, 'No.'"

"Funny, I don't know what to do now that I've said, 'Yes.'"

"Right now, I'd say go to sleep because busses leave at nine tomorrow."

Nick sleeps in Downey's bed that night, and that's so strange because he's never slept with someone he's...well, slept with before. But somehow it feels different this time. Okay, even.

And when he hisses as he sits down beside Shawn on the bus home the next morning and finds Shawn smirking, he just points his finger in Shawn's face and says, very seriously, "I hope you know this is all your fault."

"You get his number?"

"Yeah. He's taking me to Olive Garden. All you can eat breadsticks, Shawny."

Shawn high fives him. "Congratulations. Welcome to being a fully-formed person, Nick."

He grins, leans over Shawn and out the window, and waves at Downey, holding up his fingers in the universal _call me_ sign.

  
**11 MONTHS LATER...**   


"Aw," Bianca says from the seat behind Nick and Shawn. "Look, you guys. Look at Nick. He's so excited."

"I am not excited," Nick insists. "Only losers get excited over seeing—" His throat goes a little dry. "Their—"

"Oh, just call him your boyfriend," Shawn says, rolling his eyes.

"Move beyond society's labels, Shawn," Nick counters. "Come up here to the level of the enlightened."

"He is so your boyfriend," Angela chimes in. "Come back down to the level of reality."

"You bitches don't know what you're talking about," Nick insists, but gives up the rest of the argument as they pull into camp and he spots Downey standing by the bus area with a grin on his face.

"And he's gone," he hears Shawn say beside him. "Ladies, I'd advise you all to look away unless you want to see a very unpleasant sight."

"I think it's sweet," Carly says.

"It's...something, all right," Shawn agrees. "But I'd avert your eyes all the same."

"Fuck off," Nick murmurs, and then the bus comes to a stop and he pushes his teammates out of the way as he runs to the door.

Okay, so he's a little excited to see Downey and yeah, he might've just hit Sylvia in the nose as he pushed her out of the way, but whatever. Downey still isn't his _boyfriend_ and he's sure as hell not _sweet_ about it.

He makes it halfway towards Downey when he realizes everyone on the bus is hanging out the windows, watching, and he stops, glances back at them, and finishes the rest of his walk at a much slower pace.

"Hey," he says, because he is casual. He is so, so casual about this and everyone on the bus is wrong.

Downey laughs, pulls him into a hug, and gropes his ass before he finally releases him.

"That was for them, right?" Nick asks, nodding in the direction of the bus.

"A little," Downey admits. "But mostly for me. I missed you, man."

"Yeah, you, too."

Downey glances over his shoulder at their audience and shakes his head. "I don't think they're going to stop until we give them what they came for."

"Do you know any of our cheers?"

Downey snickers. "Not cheering, Nick."

"Do we have to? They think we're _sweet_. Carly eggs them on. Shawn tells her stuff and then she tells the squad."

"Well, I'm not going to spend camp not touching you in public, so...sooner or later, they're going to see it."

"Fine. But no tongue."

"You love tongue."

"Yeah, that's true."

The catcalls and whistles (and one nearly audible eye roll from Shawn) fill his ears while Downey kisses him, pulling him just close enough to get away with in public. It's been over a month since he got to see Downey and it's like a breath of fresh air that somehow manages to take his breath away at the same time.

"Are they getting off the bus?" he asks without turning around.

"Yeah. I think the novelty wore off. They've probably just never seen you with a boyfriend before."

Nick sighs. "Oh, Downey. Rise above the labels, man. We transcend definition, okay?"

"Nick," Downey says seriously.

"Yeah?"

"I'm your boyfriend, and I know you know that. Don't make me check your diary."

"Damn it."

"You don't have to say it, if you don't want to," Downey promises. "As long as you know it. Come on, let's go back to the bunk, okay?"

"Does that mean what I think it means?"

"Only if you don't mind Brewster watching. He's already there and he's cleaning his little limp wrists off."

Nick shakes his head. "I could have a cock in every hole and one in each hand and still be less gay than Brewster."

Downey shrugs. "He's not so bad."

"What?"

"I mean, he can be a little...but he's not so bad."

And the strangest thing happens. A flare of jealousy rises up in Nick's gut and before he can figure out how to stop it, he's grabbed a hold of Downey's arm and asked, "You and Brewster never...I mean, you wouldn't with him."

"Summer after my freshman year," Downey confirms. "But that was before I met you."

"Oh." He feels like his eye is twitching. Why is his eye twitching?

"Nick...hey. Hey, are you okay?"

"I'm fine. Totally fine."

Downey laughs. "The girls were right. You are sweet."

"Shut up."

"Brewster and me are just friends, man. Who do you think I talked to about you last summer when I couldn't figure out why you took my beads but wouldn't spend time alone with me?"

"You talked to him about me?"

"Oh, for God's sake, Nick. Did you or did you not just spend the last nine months fucking whoever you wanted, consequence free?"

"That's different."

"Why?"

"Because...because you don't poop where you eat, Downey."

"You realize that that's a little hypocritical, considering that you and I are kind of the same situation."

"No. No, we're not because we're...we're boyfriends."

"Oh, now you can say it."

"Downey!"

"Nick, I don't know what you want me to tell you. It was years ago. We're just friends now. Not even that, we're...we're camp friends. When we're at camp, we hang out together because it's convenient and we get along, but once I go back home? I don't even think about him, and he doesn't think about me. But I drove hours to see you all this year just so I could be with you. You don't see why Brewster's not even a blip on my radar?"

"He's just weird, man."

Downey shakes his head and pulls Nick close, one hand curling around the base of his neck while the other smoothes over his back before resting at the curve of his ass.

"Brewster's a friend, Nick. You're my boyfriend. Okay? So just let it go. It was eons ago. And to be perfectly honest, it wasn't even that good."

"Well, of course not. I mean, I'm awesome in bed so it's not a surprise he doesn't measure up."

"I didn't say he was bad in bed, Nick. I just meant that he and I didn't have the chemistry like you and I do."

"Don't chemistry me, man. You fucked that skinny bitch and you liked it."

Downey rolls his eyes, picks up Nick's bag, and starts walking back towards their dorm. After a moment, Nick catches up to him, grabs the bag back, and falls in step beside him.

"Did you at least bring beer and video games again?"

"Mhm. The beads, too. And new stuff."

"Oh, that is just awesome," Nick declares.

"So you forgive me?"

"Not really, but I'm willing to be persuaded."

Downey puts his arm around Nick's shoulders, pulling him into a one-armed hug before letting it rest there casually.

"Good thing I'm happy to persuade you then, huh?"

They step into the dorm and sure enough, there's the little Indian slut moving through the room with a duster and a can of Febreeze.

"Hey, Brewster," Downey says.

"Hello, boys," Brewster answers with no small hint of amusement and filthiness in his voice. "Word has it that you two put on quite a show down by the steps today."

"How did you hear about that already?" Nick asks.

"Baby girl, I've got eyes and ears everywhere, okay? Also, text messaging. Gift of the gossip gods. Thank God for camera phones, huh? I might have to send this one of Downey groping the daylights out of that tight little tuchus to my Twitter."

"I'd really rather you didn't."

Brewster just laughs. "So, dish. How are you two?"

"We're fucking awesome," Nick answers before Downey can. "So just remember that, okay? You can't break us up."

"Break you up?"

"Yeah, you can't have Downey."

Brewster snickers. "Yeah, I'm seeing someone. Tall, dark, and muscles on the Panthers?" He holds out his cell phone to show them a picture of himself with one of the Panthers' male cheerleaders. "Not just a feral cat on the cheer field, if you know what I mean. Am I right?"

"Very nice," Downey says approvingly. "Isn't that right, Nick?"

"Yeah, sure, if you're into guys with biceps bigger than their heads."

"I'm sensing bitterness," Brewster says, gesturing wildly in Nick's direction. "And bitterness leads to losing your will to be neat, so it's very concerning."

"I'm not bitter, I just think you should keep your hands off my boyfriend."

"Downey, you speak Jock. Care to translate?" Brewster asks.

"Nick just found out that you and I hooked up three summers ago."

Brewster laughs. "That? Please. That was barely hooking up. And did you see the guy I'm dating? The man is an ebony Greek god. Trust me, Nick. You can keep your pasty boy toy. I'm not trying to steal your precious. Besides, everyone thinks you're adorable. The gossip hills are alive with the sound of how cute you two are."

"We are cute," Nick says, feeling oddly defensive about that. "We're fucking _adorable_ , Brewster. So just keep your hands to yourself, okay?"

Brewster makes a big show of tucking his hands into his pockets before moving on to dust his bedside table.

"Just make sure you throw away your used condoms, okay?" Brewster adds. "Because you do not want to see me throw a bitch fit, okay? Your sensibilities can not handle that."

"What the fuck?" Nick asks the room at large, but the Eagle just shrugs.

"You want the bed you had last year or the one next to me?" Downey asks. "I'm pretty sure Adam won't mind bunking over here with Brewster and Shawn."

"I don't know, man. That Eagle freaks me out."

"On the plus side, though, it's hard to hear in that costume and as long as we're quiet, we won't get caught."

"I'll overcome my masklophobia."

Brewster grins at them as Nick deposits his bag on the empty bed before he realizes Downey is trying to push his bed closer to Nick's.

"Downey? What are you doing?"

"Pushing the beds together, dude."

"We can fuck in just one. Remember? We did last year in yours."

"It's not for fucking. It's so that we can sleep together."

"Like 'sleep together,' sleep together? Or like, 'nicer way of saying fucking,' sleep together?"

"The kind where you close your eyes and go to sleep. Why?"

"That's a little gay, don't you think?"

"You keep a diary," Downey answers. "You write poetry in it. I'm not asking you to spoon me lovingly all night long. The entire point of pushing the two beds together is so that we don't have to sleep all squished together if we don't want to."

"But we still get to fuck, right? While we're actually sleeping?"

Downey laughs. "Yes, Nick. Of course."

"Well, I'm just saying. People start that sleeping together and cuddling crap and they stop having sex."

Downey flattens his hand against the small of Nick's back and uses it to pull him close. He kisses him slowly, deeply, until Nick's starting to wonder if they can just kick Brewster out of the room and put up a do-not-disturb sign.

"Do you really think I could stop having sex with you?" Downey murmurs. "I drove hours to be with you all this past year. I'm not stopping just because we're sharing a bed."

"You better not hold out on me," Nick insists. "Because my body only expects two things when it walks into this camp, okay? The first is to throw girls into the air and the second is _lots of sex_."

"Do I have to take you to the northeast corner right here and now? Because I don't think you'd like getting fucked against a redwood."

"Downey!"

"What?"

"Don't talk about that stuff. Christ."

"So you can insist loudly and publicly that we have lots of sex, but I can't say that you wouldn't like having sex against a tree?"

"That's not what you said."

"You have so many issues, Nick."

"Yeah, well...you're the one who pushed me. My closet door was made of fucking steel, Downey. All your fault."

Downey takes Nick's hand in his and squeezes it lightly. "Come on. We're going to be late for orientation. Coach Keith hates it when people get there late. And when he gets mad—"

Nick winces. "Trust me, I know what he does when he gets mad. He made me do naked cheers last year. And then he _touched_ me."

Downey makes a face. "See, that? So much ickier than me having hooked up with Brewster."

"Don't bring that back up again," Nick insists. "Let's just go to orientation, okay? I don't want a repeat of naked cheering. It's just weird, Downey."

Downey looks at him with something akin to pity in his eyes and holds his hand all the way down to the orientation area. Nick's not big on holding hands—too gay for his taste—but he allows it because, well, it's Downey, and there's very little he wouldn't do for Downey. He once let the guy stuff his ass with some kind of plug thing and leave it there all fucking weekend while they were visiting each other, only taking it out when they were fucking. He even had to wear the damn thing in public and by the time Downey left, he was fucking _sore_.

So he lets Downey hold his hand and if he scoots a little closer to him when they sit down to listen to Keith and Diora's speech, it's because he feels nervous around Keith now, not because he likes the warmth of Downey's body pressed against him.

Shawn sees him do it, too, and Nick's pretty sure he'll be getting shit for it until he sees Shawn sling an arm around Carly's shoulders and rest his head against hers.

Maybe this is what dating someone is all about. Wanting to touch them all the time but not always for sex. Or maybe it's always wanting sex but being willing to settle for just a touch.

"So," Downey whispers, his lips pressed so close to Nick's ear that he more feels the words than hears them, "I was thinking that tonight after everyone went to sleep, we could play The Silent Game."

"The Silent Game?"

"Mhm. It's when we try to have sex so quietly that we don't wake up our bunkmates. Because that would be weird."

"Yeah, I really don't want Shawn seeing that."

"Or Brewster Twittering about it, complete with pictures."

"God," Nick groans, because that's seriously a possibility to watch out for with Brewster.

"Think you can be quiet?"

"Of course I can. I'm a master at all kinds of sex, including the silent kind."

Downey nods. "It's been too fucking long since I was inside you," he adds.

He leans away and turns his attention back to Keith and Diora just as Nick's throat goes dry and his stomach turns over pleasantly. Never let it be said that he was not a man who knew what he wanted. Well, at least in the last year. Before that, maybe. But in the last year and from here on forward, never let it be said that he wasn't a man who knew what he wanted.

So that evening, Nick seeks out Poppy and asks if she can get him some real food instead of the mess hall twigs and nuts. She does, and Downey supplies a bottle of wine, and they eat their dinner on the field while Downey counts shooting stars.

"I know this isn't your thing," Downey murmurs. "But I wanted to do this with you all last year. So...thanks."

"I can be romantic," Nick insists. "I can be fucking Cupid, as long as you don't expect me to wear the diaper. I'm totally cool with shooting people in the ass, though."

"You're setting yourself up for a dirty joke, aren't you?"

"You know me too well."

"I didn't mean you weren't romantic," Downey adds. "I just meant...I asked you last year and you acted like it was a joke. So...I just wanted to say thanks for asking me this year. It's not your thing, but you're doing it to be nice, so...thanks."

"You think I said no because I didn't want to do this?"

"Well—"

"Downey, I had no idea. Shawn had to tell me that you were gay."

"And then I had to tell you that you were," Downey finishes. "Right."

"I still think the shooting stars thing is kind of gay, but...I didn't say no because I didn't want to do this with you."

Downey chuckles under his breath.

"What?"

"You telling me that? Actually kind of sweet."

"Yeah, yeah. Don't go soft on me. I was promised sex and I want it."

"Right here?"

Nick shrugs. "There's no one around. We've got a blanket. Why not?"

"Because it sounds like Coach Keith has a weird propensity to always show up when you're naked."

Nick considers that. "Maybe...maybe the blanket will count as clothes and his Naked-Nick radar won't go off."

Downey laughs and kisses him, fingers threading into Nick's hair.

"I guess I'd rather take my chances at having you all to myself out here, since I know I won't back at the dorm."

"Fucking Brewster."

"I'm actually scared he's put up cameras around the room," Downey murmurs. "But out here...just you, me, and the stars."

"And a condom. And lube," Nick adds. "And possibly Coach Keith."

"If he shows up, maybe we can just ignore him and he'll go away."

"He'd probably try to make us do cheers with you still inside me," Nick mutters. "What a freak."

Downey chuckles before kissing him again, deeper this time, and Nick goes with it, lets Downey pull the blanket up over them and wiggle his jeans off his hips. It's cramped and a little difficult, not to mention the ground beneath him isn't as soft as a bed, but they manage to make it work enough for Downey to slick his fingers up with a tube of lube from his pocket and work him open enough to press inside.

It's different than any other time they've fucked before because before it was all about knowing it was their only shot for a long while. The night before they left camp last year, all the times he and Downey met half way between their hometowns and spent the weekend in a hotel together...those have been rushed and desperate, but now...now they've got three weeks together and after that, they're going to colleges within driving distance of each other. And Nick's not sure what it means that he went with his second choice school instead of his first because the former was close to Downey, but all the same...there's no rush anymore.

And Nick, surprisingly, likes that. With everyone he's ever been with before, he's had to hurry. He's had to perform. He's had to please as soon as possible to prove that he's good enough. But the way Downey looks at him...it's like he already knows Nick is good enough and just being inside him is all that he needs.

So he takes his time kissing Downey and touching him and mapping out his body in a way he never has before. And that entire minute where his eyes are locked on Downey's and he can't look away, not even when Downey's cock rubs against his prostate and sends a jolt of pleasure through him...that doesn't mean anything. It doesn't mean he's falling in love with Downey, because he's not. Falling in love with another guy is gay and Nick may like getting fucked, but he can still win that straight award.

Downey hitches Nick's leg up higher, kissing the bend of his knee, and sighs softly against Nick's skin.

"I've missed this," Downey murmurs. The vibrations of Downey's lips on his skin make Nick laugh, and Downey smiles down at him in response.

"I have," he says, like he has to argue the point, and carefully brushes Nick's hair back away from his face. "There's no place else I'd rather be, Nick. And no one else I'd rather be there with."

"Don't sound like such a f—"

He stops at the hurt look on Downey's face.

"I'm sorry," he says, and it's one of those rare times in his life when he actually means it. "I..."

He grits his teeth and wills himself to let this be one of those times where he lets his true feelings get him what he wants. It worked with Diora last year—sort of—didn't it?

"I'm glad I'm here with you, too."

There. He said it. And if the smile Downey gives him, the one that makes him feel like he's the best thing in Downey's world—and isn't that a strange feeling?—is any indication, it was the right thing to say.

"Was that so hard?" Downey asks teasingly.

"Like pulling teeth. Now fuck me."

Downey hesitates like he's trying to decide if he should argue the point, then he nods and suddenly it's not so soft and sweet anymore. Suddenly he's being fucked roughly—he had no idea Downey was even capable of such rough fucking—and he digs his fingers into Downey's back, determined to leave his mark on Downey, just like Downey is leaving a mark on him. The only difference is that his scratches will be visible, but the mark Downey's left on him...it's not something he can even see. It's just something he feels and he has to return it in some small way.

When Downey comes, his face is pressed into Nick's neck and his moans are muffled there. Afterwards, he idly licks Nick's neck before biting down and sucking a hickey into the same spot.

"Downey—fuck, Downey, people are gonna see that."

"And?"

"And...they'll see."

"I groped you in front of half the camp earlier," Downey points out. "And Brewster's been Twittering. What, you think people don't realize we're fucking?"

"I...I don't know," Nick admits. "I hadn't...thought that through."

"Clearly."

"Downey..."

Downey just shakes his head and goes back to sucking on Nick's neck while curling one hand around his cock. It doesn't take much to get him off like that, not with Downey's hand and mouth on him. Although truthfully, he was ready to come just from Downey sucking on his neck after a fucking like that.

"Nick, listen to me," Downey says when his vision has cleared. "I'm willing to work with you on this, but you have to be willing to work with me, okay? Because guess what, Nick? You're as gay as the day is long."

"Hamlet Two?" Nick asks.

"Yeah."

Nick nods. "Good movie."

Downey shakes his head. "It is, but you're not focusing on what's important here."

"What's the important part?"

"Nick."

Nick sighs. "I just...don't..."

"What?"

"I don't know how to be gay. I know how to be Nick."

"I really hate to be the one to break this to you, but those things aren't mutually exclusive. They're pretty damn inclusive. Nick, the only one who has a problem with this is you. Your friends know we're dating and they still love you. Everyone is okay with you being gay except you. And the thing is...you seem pretty okay with everyone knowing we're dating, but you act like being gay is somehow...unrelated."

"It is. Brewster is gay. You and me...we're...we're guys and we fuck."

"That's gay, Nick. Look it up on the dictionary. Or better yet, look it up on the internet. There's pictures."

"If I promise to try to work on that, can we stop talking about our feelings and shit?"

Downey sighs and runs his fingers through Nick's hair idly.

"For tonight, yeah."

"Then can we go back to the dorm? Because it's cold out here and I'm still waiting for Coach Keith to show up and ask me what that white stuff on the grass over there is and I can't think of a good enough excuse to bullshit him with."

Downey nods. "Yeah. But you're not allowed to freak out when we get in bed, okay? Or to wake up before everyone else just so you can get out of the dorm so they won't see us in bed together."

"Fine. No cuddling."

Downey shakes his head. "You're a tough negotiator, Nick."

"Well? Do you agree to my terms? Or do I have to throw habeas corpus around? Don't make me get out my ex post facto."

"Do you even know what those words mean?"

"Book 'em, Danno."

"All right. I agree to your terms."

Nick shakes Downey's hand solemnly before they pack up their blanket and mostly-empty bottle of wine and head back to the dorm.

***

When Nick wakes up the next morning, the first thing he notices is that he's really warm. Not hot, just really comfortable, and he doesn't want to move, not even to open an eye. The next thing is that he's wrapped around Downey, chest to Downey's back, and their legs are tangled together. It's everything he's pretty sure he hates, but it's still so damn _comfortable_ that he can't help it when he snuggles closer.

He holds Downey to him and sighs against the back of his neck, trying to figure out what he's supposed to do. It's bad enough that all his bunkmates know he and Downey are sharing a bed, but this? Nick's pretty sure he'd rather have them watch him suck Downey's cock. It'd be less embarrassing.

He's not supposed to be like this. He's not this kind of guy. Hell, he doesn't even want to be friends with this kind of guy. It's why Shawn's been on notice since last summer. He and Carly are sickening and Nick doesn't want to be like that.

"Downey," he whispers. "Downey, wake up."

"Shh," Downey mumbles, obviously still asleep. "Five more minutes."

"No, you have to wake up."

Downey starts to snore lightly.

He contemplates his other option with desperation. He's on the side of the bed against the wall, so he can't get out that way, and some how, Downey ended up mostly on his bed, so there's not much room to even scoot away from him to try and make it look like they weren't—God, he can barely think the word— _spooning_. His only other option is to climb over Downey and hope no one hears him, but he promised Downey he wouldn't get up before everyone else just so they wouldn't see them sleeping together. And Nick may have broken a lot of promises to people he's fucked before, but...well, he tries not to do that with Downey. Downey's...special.

"Downey...come on, please," he says. "Please, I can't—I can't do this."

Downey just shifts back against him in his sleep until there's not an inch of him that isn't flush against Nick.

He sighs, resigning himself to Brewster whipping out his camera as soon as he wakes up, and gives one last half-hearted shake to Downey's shoulder. Nothing, as expected, and he gives up.

"Nick?"

He's not sure how much later it is when he hears Shawn say his name with that disbelieving awe in his voice, but he's pretty sure he fell back asleep between giving up and then. It was just so damn comfortable that he couldn't not.

"Shawn—"

But Shawn doesn't look like he wants to make fun of him. He looks...actually, kind of proud.

Shawn smiles, pats him on the ankle, and starts changing into his practice uniform.

"I'll see you at breakfast," he says quietly, and Nick nods because he's struck speechless that Shawn isn't mad or doesn't want to hurl at the sight of him doing this. Seeing Shawn and Carly like this certainly makes _him_ sick, so why not Shawn?

Ten minutes later, Downey rolls over sleepily and presses a sloppy kiss onto Nick's neck. "Morning," he murmurs without moving his lips, and with any other person, Nick might be annoyed, but... _Downey_.

"Oh, so now you'll wake up."

"Hmm?"

"Shawn saw us, Downey."

"Okay."

He yawns loudly and snuggles against him, then slings one of his legs over both of Nick's and uses the leverage to pull him closer.

"You're warm," he says, and still he hasn't opened his eyes.

"Downey—"

But then Downey's lips find his and it's really hard not to kiss Downey because he's one of the most kissable men Nick's ever met. So he gives in and lets Downey kiss him, morning breath and all, until he hears a rustling on the other side of the room.

He peeks one eye open, praying to whatever power exists that it's not Brewster with a camera phone, but it's just Adam and he gives Nick the international symbol for _way to get some_ before heading out of the dorm.

"Downey—" he mumbles. "Downey, come on."

Downey shakes his head, grabs the covers, and pulls them up over both their heads.

"Better?" he asks.

Nick nods. "But we should be getting ready. After breakfast is drills, so..."

"This won't take long."

"That's...always what a guy wants to hear about his stamina."

"Nothing to do with that," Downey promises, and practically slithers down the bed to suck his cock. He doesn't pull any teasing punches this time, just goes straight for what Nick loves. He twists in all the right places and sucks just where Nick needs it before pressing two spit-slick fingers into him and fucking him just how he wants it. His back arches off the bed and he groans at how quickly Downey took him to this height before he realizes how Downey could.

He's never slept with anyone enough for them to get to know his body this well, but Downey...Downey can clearly play him like a harp and it hits him right in the chest that Downey is so acquainted with his body, so utterly intimate with him, that he can do this to him with such ease.

He bites his lip to choke back a moan at the thought and lets Downey push his hips back down to the bed before he sucks him in as deep as he can go and gives him exactly what he wants.

He's not sure how long it takes Downey to get him off like that, but it couldn't have been more than ten minutes. Likely less. And Downey is smirking about it so hard that Nick tries to kiss it off and, ultimately, fails.

"So," Downey says when Nick finally releases him. "I'm thinking breakfast."

"How can you think about getting up now?"

"Nick, you're a cheerleader now. You're not allowed to run out of energy. Now man up and have a Red Bull."

Nick laughs, then stops when he realizes Downey is being completely serious.

"Fine. But if Brewster got an audio recording of that, I'm not forgiving you."

"That's fair," Downey agrees, and carefully, Nick peeks over the corner of the comforter before ducking back down underneath quickly.

"Brewster?" Downey asks.

"No."

"Coach Keith?"

"No. The eagle."

Downey laughs, kisses him, and slips out of bed. After a moment, Nick steels his nerves, and follows.


	2. Chapter 2

Two mornings later, Nick wakes up early—he's pretty sure that's the sun rising outside the window—to the feel of two of Downey's fingers fucking into him and groans, letting his head fall back against Downey's shoulder.

"What—fuck, what are you doing?"

"Good morning," Downey says by way of answer, and slips a third finger into him.

There's only spit for lube, but Nick's still a little loose from the night before, so it doesn't so much hurt as it's just a lot more friction than he's used to. He sighs but offers no complaint, rolls a little further onto his stomach, and lifts his knee up to give Downey better access.

It's relaxing to do this, to just become calm and pliant and let Downey do what he will. He's never been this unguarded in any sense of the word with anyone before—not even Shawn, and Shawn's the closest thing Nick ever came before Downey to having an other who was actually significant. But it's nice to just relax and let Downey push inside him, the lube on the condom offering a small respite from the crazy drag of non-lubricated friction. He gets the feeling fucking dry would be kind of hot until it was over, and then it'd be a lot of walking around bowlegged and wincing every time he sat down.

It's slow and gentle like that first night under the stars, only this time Nick makes sure he doesn't fuck it up, and instead just lets Downey spoon against him, hips rocking slowly and carefully into him. It's an almost lazy fuck, and it makes him relaxed and sleepy. When he comes, it's not so much the usual explosion behind his eyelids as it is like a heavy exhalation or sigh, and he falls back asleep with Downey still inside him.

The next time he wakes up, he's on his side and Downey is brushing the hair off his face. He gives him a tired smile and is ready to drift back off to sleep when Downey kisses the corner of his mouth and says, "I love you."

"What?"

For a moment, he thinks—hopes—Downey will take it back, will say he said something else and let them both escape out of this with their dignity. But then he shakes his head, clears his throat, and looks Nick right in the eye.

"I love you, Nick. And I know you need time to process that, so you take your time, okay? But I want an answer either way before we leave camp. So that's two and a half weeks for you to decide if you love me or not. Okay?"

"Downey—"

"Unless you're ready to say it now," Downey adds hopefully.

Nick closes his mouth and shakes his head.

"I thought so," Downey sighs. "Breakfast is in twenty and I need a shower first. You coming?"

"That's...that's it?"

"What's it?"

"You just said—you just dropped this bomb on our—" He gestures wildly between them rather than say the word _relationship_. "And now you're just...going to the shower?"

"What did you want me to do?"

"Fix it."

"Fix it? What's broken?"

"Us. God, Downey. We were fine and then you had to go and say that and now everything's fucked up."

"Is it?" Downey asks, a little amused. "It doesn't feel fucked up to me. Everything looks okay." He kisses Nick softly before adding, "Yep, kisses are still the same..."

"That," Nick says, unable to even think the words, "ruins everything."

"No," Downey promises. "What ruins everything is you fighting it, Nick. You'll sleep with me, but you can't say you're gay. You'll cuddle with me and make love with me, but you can't say you love me. Your problem isn't in what you say, it's in what you don't say, okay? So I'm giving you two and a half weeks to decide whether or not you can start saying it. I think after a year together, you owe me enough to at least try. I've earned that."

"Downey—"

"Nick. You are a gay homosexual and I am your boyfriend who loves you, okay? Those are facts. They're not up for interpretation, you can't explain them away—they are cold, hard, facts of life. Now, what you do with those...that's what the next two and a half weeks are for. I won't pressure you to give me an answer early, if you don't want, but you do need to be figuring your shit out, okay?"

Downey touches his chin softly and Nick sighs when his eyes flutter closed at the touch.

"Just think about it," Downey adds, then rolls out of bed, grabs some clothes and his shower bag, and heads out.

When he's gone, Nick waits ten minutes before shaking Shawn awake and demanding he come with Nick to the showers.

Shawn doesn't look like he wants to do that, but he finally sighs and rolls out of bed, so Nick waits until they're out of Brewster's still-sleeping earshot before he says, "So...Shawny."

"Nicky?" Shawn says back in the same tone of voice.

"Don't make fun of my pain, Shawn. I just lost a lot of good sex this morning."

"What?"

"Downey said the L word, and I don't mean Bianca and Angela."

But instead of the panicked, horrified look Nick expects, Shawn beams at him. "That's great, man."

"What? No, Shawn. Blowjobs are great. Scoring the winning touchdown is great. Nailing the Fountain of Troy is great. But this? This is a disaster."

"Nick, come on."

"You do realize he wasn't joking, right?" Nick clarifies. "Like, he was being totally serious."

"I'd hope so. That's a shitty thing to joke about. Did you say it back?"

"What? Of course not. Are you insane?"

"Carly and I say it."

Nick gasps. "You take that lie back, Shawn Colfax."

"We do. We've been saying it for like...six months now, and we have the same anniversary as you and Downey, Nick."

"Why? Why would you blaspheme the church that is the pussy? It is your temple, Shawn. You worship at it."

"Considering that you converted to the church with the biggest steeple, I think my saying, 'I love you,' isn't really the worst thing happening here."

"I'll have you know that I have always been a cock connoisseur, Shawn. Science says so. Inborn, bitch."

"I'm just saying that you can hardly call it blasphemy. And you should really say it back."

"What? Say it back? Are you crazy?"

"No. I just think you love him. I think you have loved him for a while now. I think you decided to go to Northwestern just so you could be close to him. I think you're so fucking crazy about him that you can't admit it because...actually, I don't even know why, Nick. You love him. Just admit that."

"That's fucking gay, man."

"Nick...say it with me, okay? Please, just say it with me: you are fucking gay. You are fucking a gay, even. You are a gay homosexual, that's the way you were born, and now you have lots of gay sex when you think we can't hear it to prove it. Which, by the way, we can. Brewster commentates on it via text message. And guess what? You love it. You love Downey and the gay sex that comes with him and that's fine, Nick. It's okay. Everyone still cares about you and we just want you to be happy. So let Downey make you happy, okay?"

"He does make me happy. I thought you said you heard us fucking."

"Let him make you emotionally happy," Shawn corrects. "And don't say you don't have emotions, because you do. I just...can't figure out why you're freaking out this much. Downey's a great guy, Nick. A sweet, smart, funny guy—"

"Shawn, is there something you want to tell me? Because you have Carly. You can't have Downey, too."

"I don't _want_ Downey, Nick. And the fact that you do means you're _gay_ , okay? Just get over that already. Everyone else has. And that sweet, smart, funny guy, for whatever crazy reason, has fallen in love with _you_ and I know you love him back. Okay? I know that. Why can't you just tell him?"

"I don't _like_ those words, okay? They just fuck things up."

"Nick...don't you realize how...how sad that is? A guy is _in love with you_ and you're going to throw it away because you're too fucking scared to take a chance. Well, look around you, Nick. You're taking chances for him already. You altered your plans for the next four years just so you could be near him. You came back to cheer camp for him. And now you're going to suddenly play the scared little bitch? Come on, Nick. You've gotta risk it to get the biscuit. Or the dick-it? I'm not sure how that goes."

"Shawny—"

"Look, I'm not going to sit here and be your therapist while you dig into the hows and whys to your fucked up notion that saying, 'I love you,' ruins a relationship. That's your shit and you need to go deal with it. So...you figure that out. All I'm saying is that you have to go big or go home."

"You give awful advice."

"It's not advice. It's...a caution. For you to not let this stand in your way when you could have something really good. So...you advise yourself. I'm taking a shower and then meeting Carly for breakfast."

Nick wants to argue, to say that it's disgusting that Shawn and Carly actually do that, but he's too busy trying to figure out if Shawn's right. Shawn's usually pretty fucking wrong when it comes to sex, and Nick's usually the one telling him not to ruin his life with a relationship, but...

Maybe he could say it. It would make Downey happy and when Downey's happy, Nick gets sex, right? He's certainly implied it to a lot of girls for pussy over the years. Would it really hurt to do it with Downey?

Yeah. Yeah, it would because if Downey found out he didn't mean it...that would be the worst. He might even cry and Nick can't stand it when dudes cry. It's worse than when chicks do.

So if he says it, he has to mean it. And that's not an option because Nick? Nick doesn't fall in love and he sure as fuck doesn't fall in love with long-haired boys who pack almost as many sex toys as they do clothes for cheer camp and who smile in a way that can only be called pretty. It's just not something he does.

He sighs, stepping into the shower stall next to Shawn, and glances at him over the top. He idly rubs his bar of soap over his chest, but he can't stop thinking about it.

"Uh, Nick?" Shawn says after a moment. "Look, if you're thinking about panicking about this by fucking anyone who'll have you...that's a really bad idea and I'm not one of the ones who will, okay? I don't think Downey'd like it if he knew you were groping me with your eyes."

"I'm not groping you with my eyes. And even if I were going to do that, I wouldn't go for you. I'm not gay, Shawn."

Shawn takes a deep breath, then says, louder than Nick thinks is really necessary, " _You have a boyfriend. You have sex with him. You are gay, Nick Brady._ "

"I'm not," Nick insists, "but even if I were, I wouldn't be gay for you."

"Then what's with the staring?"

"Okay, well...let's pretend for a second that I don't think this love stuff is bullshit."

"Right."

"Okay, so...why did you say it?"

"To Carly? Because it was true and I wanted her to know it. And relationships don't move forward if you just...let them sit. And you've been letting your relationship with Downey sit for like, a year, man. And by this point, either you love him, or you never will. So if you do, you need to tell him so you can move forward. And if you don't, then you need to tell him so that you can break up."

"I don't want to break up. What's the other thing?"

"Moving forward?"

"Yeah. What's that like?"

"What?"

"I'm looking at my options. Tell me about it."

"Nick, I'm kind of in the middle of showering, here."

"And I'm in the middle of the biggest fucking disaster of my life, Shawny. You can shower and talk at the same time. I need to know what's in this land I might be moving forward into. Is there sex there? Do I have to talk about my feelings? Will there be cuddling?"

"Please, I saw you cuddling the other morning. Don't even act like you don't do it already."

"Just answer the fucking question."

Shawn sighs, wets his hair, and flips open the shampoo cap.

"When you move forward, the relationship becomes...you know, deeper."

"And sex?"

"You can still have sex. And yes, you might sometimes have to talk about your feelings, but when you move forward...it's not as weird as it sounds now. And then you get to be...you know, like, closer. You can make plans together."

"What kind of plans?"

"Like picking a college closer to them," Shawn says pointedly. "And after you're both done with freshman year...after that you can live off campus so you could get an apartment together or something. The plans are really up to the two of you, but—"

"So living together. That's part of this moving forward thing?"

"Yeah. And then one day you get married. And by the time Downey finally convinces you to get hitched, it'll be legal so..."

"Wait, so if I say, 'I love you,' I have to live with him and marry him? Jesus Christ, Shawn. Why do people do this?"

"You don't have to, but that's generally what happens..."

"So you and Carly. You've made these plans?"

"Well...she didn't want to get married until she was thirty-four, but then we decided to just wing—why am I telling you this?"

Nick shakes his head. "I'm just trying to figure it out, Shawny," he says honestly. "I mean...how did you even know that you wanted to make plans with Carly?"

Shawn considers that in silence for a moment while he rinses the shampoo out of his hair, then says, "I just realized that when I thought about my foreseeable future, she was in it. And when I tried to imagine it without her...it wasn't as good."

"It's not like I want to get rid of Downey," Nick says.

"I know, Nick. Look, I genuinely think you are in love with him, but that's not my business. It's between you and him, okay? You need to be having this conversation with him, not me."

Shawn gives him an awkward shrug before turning the water off and wrapping a towel around his waist.

"I'm gonna go have some breakfast and then Carly and I are going to practice my back handspring. It hasn't been right since I got back to camp. But talk to Downey, okay? Promise me, Nick. You owe yourself this."

Nick waves him off without actually making the promise. It's not fair he has to deal with this. Fucking Downey making everything so god damn complicated.

***

He manages to avoid Downey until bedtime—well, they had practice with their respective squads all day, so it's not like he'd have been around him very much anyway—and he even avoids the dorm until he's absolutely ready to drop and needs his sleep. He walks in, sends Shawn a non-verbal plea for help, and tries to ignore Brewster softly humming a funeral dirge. He doesn't know if Brewster knows why he's upset, and he doesn't care. If he does, it's too late to stop the grape vine from passing it along.

He sighs at the sight of Downey in their bed—he really should've put his foot down on that one. Maybe that's why Downey thought it was okay to pull this stupid stunt—and tugs his shirt off before sitting down gingerly on the edge of the bed.

"Hey."

Downey's hand is warm on his bare back and Nick closes his eyes, granting himself one brief moment to savor it before he scoots away.

"Nick," Downey murmurs softly. "It's okay."

"No. It's not," Nick answers. "I don't—"

"You don't what? You don't love me back?"

Downey's voice is soft and sad and something tugs at Nick until he turns to face him again.

"That's not—I didn't—" He takes a deep, clearing breath and nods towards the deck. "Can we go outside?"

Downey nods and follows him out onto the deck of their dorm, door shut tightly to keep out Brewster's prying ears. Nick could practically see his fingers twitching in anticipation of the text messages he wanted to send as they walked out.

"Okay," Downey says when he's settled himself at the table. "I'm listening."

Nick drops ungracefully down into the chair beside him, shivering slightly from the cold. He wishes he'd brought his shirt and he scoots closer to Downey wordlessly, seeking warmth.

"I—" he starts, then drops his head down onto the tabletop and shouts, "Fuck!"

"Nick, come on, just talk to me," Downey says, and then the wonderfully sweet bastard is rubbing his back soothingly, spreading heat wherever his hand touches. Nick covers Downey's thigh with his hand and curls his fingers reflexively against him.

"I don't say those words to anyone," Nick mutters. "Not like that. I've never even said them while trying to get pussy, okay?"

"Okay."

"So if I say them...I have to mean them. You know? 'Cause you just don't throw that shit around. There are lines you don't cross and that's the big one. You can imply it, but you never fucking _say_ it."

"Nick—"

"See...here's the thing," Nick continues. "My parents have this crazy-awesome marriage and when I was a kid, I thought that's what I wanted, too. But then everyone else started saying, 'I love you,' to girls and some of them even said they meant it, but I...I never did. And I got so fucking angry because there had to be someone I could mean it with, you know? Where was she? And you're the first person I've ever even been able to consider saying it to."

Downey's fingers slide up to his hair and tangle there before gently guiding his head up off the table. He looks more serious than Nick can remember seeing him, but it somehow works on him as much as a light-hearted smile.

"Nick, what are you trying to say?"

Nick sighs, curls his fingers around Downey's wrist, and stares down at the ground. "I think...I think I might be gay."

After a very long pause, Downey starts to laugh.

"You just figured that out, huh?"

"Shut up. I mean, it makes sense, right? That's why I couldn't make it work with a girl?"

"It makes perfect sense," Downey agrees. "So does that mean you're making it work with me?"

"I don't know. I mean...Shawn said he knew because he didn't want imagine being without Carly. And I don't want to either, but..."

"You know what, Nick?" Downey murmurs. "I'm not going to push you on this one. You take your time. Just let me know before the end of camp, okay?"

He's got the same smirk on his face he had the day he told Nick that closet doors came in all shapes and sizes. It's unsettling and Nick tugs him closer to bury his face in Downey's neck.

"I'm trying," he mumbles against Downey's pulse.

"I know," Downey answers. He sounds a little shocked, but he wraps his arms around Nick anyway.

"How did you even know, anyway? I mean, is it something you either know or don't? Do you just wake up one day and decide to be in love with someone?"

"No. Not for me, anyway. I knew because every time I had to drive back home after spending the weekend with you, it got harder and harder to say goodbye. And eventually, I just...I'd get home and I'd feel like part of me was missing. And every time I'm with you, I'm reminded of the fact that I love you, Nick. Because now? This? Being with you makes my life better. And I just wish...I wish you'd let me do the same for you."

Maybe it's the stress of the day or the fact that Nick is tired and freezing, but he sleepily answers, "You do," before he can stop himself.

Downey guides Nick's face away from his neck and brings their lips together, kissing him softly like he never has before.

"You're either going to break my heart or be the greatest thing that ever happened to me. You know that?"

Nick doesn't answer. He can't. There's a giant weight on his shoulders at the thought of being that important in Downey's life, either way.

"Come on," Downey murmurs when the silence gets to be too heavy. "Let's just go to bed, all right?"

Nick follows him, still speechless, and for the first time since they got to camp, he's the one who pulls Downey close in bed, wrapping his arms around him tightly and hiding his face against the back of Downey's neck. He's scared as hell and he wants to tell Downey that he won't break his heart, he'll try his damnedest, but he can't make that promise yet. And it scares him to death that he actually _cares_.

It's the first night they don't have sex since they got to camp. Nick still feels closer to Downey than he ever has before.

***

When Nick wakes up the next morning, he finds himself in the position of being the big spoon. It doesn't happen often, but he realizes he's been clinging to Downey all night long. He feels sick at the realization and carefully frees his arms from Downey's chest and rolls out of the bed, leaving Downey sighing in his sleep and shivering slightly at the loss of Nick's warmth.

He glances around the room and finds that everyone is still in their beds, so he heads out into the crisp morning air and goes for a run.

Running doesn't do much except give him an excuse not to think. If he's working on his body, he doesn't have to work on his mind or his—fuck, this shouldn't even be an option—heart. He can just listen to his feet pounding against the pavement and not hear Downey's voice reverberating throughout his head.

But once he's done with his run, he heads back to the dorm and finds it empty. His and Downey's bed is made neatly and no sign of what Downey thought when he woke up alone. But after what he said to Nick yesterday, he's got the general idea. And the insane part is that it actually makes him feel like shit.

He grabs his cheer clothes and heads to the showers, stepping into an empty stall without looking to see who his neighbor is. He's in the middle of washing his hair when he realizes it's Downey, and he's watching Nick with a hurt look on his face.

"You were gone this morning," he says. "I woke up after—I was afraid you'd left camp again. Shawn said you wouldn't leave without your diary, but—"

"I went for a run," Nick answers, and sighs, leaning against the cold tile and exposing himself to God only knows what might be growing there. "I needed...to think."

"Okay. I just...you're scaring the shit out of me, Nick. One minute you're holding me like you never have before and the next you're literally running away."

The few guys left in the room glance at each other awkwardly before hurrying on out of the shower, leaving the two of them alone. Nick's heart thrums in his chest at the thought of being alone with Downey right now and he tries to will himself to calm down.

"It's okay if you need time," Downey says. "I told you that. I'm not trying to put pressure on you to say it back just yet. But it's not okay to totally freak out and make me wake up alone, not knowing if you're coming back. There's a difference, okay? Just...at least a note, Nick. 'Freaked out. Went for a run. Be back later.' Something."

"I...I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry, Nick. Just don't do this to me, okay?"

"I'm trying," Nick insists. "Downey, I—I'm not like you, okay? This is hard for me."

"I know. I'm just saying...let me know so I don't freak out, okay? Don't I deserve that?"

"Yeah." Nick sighs. "I'll...next time I'll leave a note."

Downey nods. "Look, I'm trying to be patient."

"I know."

Downey shrugs and steps out from under the water. Nick bites his lip and averts his eyes so he won't watch the rivulets of water run down Downey's body because if he does, he's going to end up getting to his knees and sucking Downey off and that's not what either of them need right now. He needs to focus on how he feels instead of what his dick wants.

"I'm gonna go," Downey murmurs. "Just—just take your time, okay?"

Nick nods silently and watches Downey as he retreats, trying not to feel defeated. He feels like he's losing something and he doesn't know why.

***

That evening after the last practice session of the day, Nick grabs his diary and goes for a walk so he can have time to think before he has to face Downey again. He finally finds an empty patch of grass under a tree that looks inviting and he settles there, diary open on his lap and pen poised.

He's written a lot in here about Downey in the last year. There's a poem he wrote the morning after they slept together for the first time and it's only the first of many that he's put to paper since then. There was even once on his way back home after spending the weekend with Downey when he had to pull off the road and write it down then and there because he was just so unbelievably inspired.

That's the problem, really. Downey inspires him, more than anyone else ever has. Now, though...now he's drawing a blank.

 _Sunlight filters in  
Tired rays caress smooth skin  
Beautiful man wakes_

He shakes his head and crosses it out with a large X. He doesn't write fucking haikus, and especially not ones that bad. He sighs and drops his head onto his knees, feeling the texture of the paper against his skin.

Writing is the only thing that lets him deal with this shit and now he can't. He can't go back to Downey without being okay about this and he can't do that until he can fucking put pen to paper in a real way.

"Oh, baby girl," someone says, and he knows it's Brewster without having to look up. "Whatever it is, it's not that bad. Moping's not good for your complexion."

"Go away, Brewster," he mumbles against the pages of his diary.

He feels Brewster settle down next to him and he sighs, resigning himself to talking to him.

"I heard you and Downey have been bandying about the big L recently," Brewster says, nudging him with his shoulder.

"He's been bandying. I've been writing shitty haikus."

Brewster shakes his head. "You're something, Nick Brady. You know that?"

"Yeah."

"Look, I'm going to let you in on a little secret, okay? When Downey and I had our thing...I had feelings for him."

"What?" Nick asks. "I'm in a full-on meltdown and this is when you decide to tell me that you've got the hots for my boyfriend? Fuck you."

"Let me finish," Brewster says calmly. "I thought he was just the proverbial bee's knees, Nick, and wasn't I lucky to be the one he hooked up with? But I never got around to telling him that. I just...panicked. Saying that I had feelings for him made it too real, you know? I mean, I was still going by Jack at that point, for God's sake. Or trying to, anyway. I actually think the only reason he hooked up with me was because I was still Jack back then. He's got a thing for the overly masculine types." He smiles softly and winks. "Pretty hard to be Jack in a cheer uniform, but there you go. It was 2006. It was a crazy time for us all. And I didn't want it to be real."

"So—"

"Look, I don't think Downey felt that way about me. I think I was just a hookup for him, and that's fine. I'm way over it now. But it took me two years to finally let go of that regret and I only liked him. I'm just saying...if you love him...I can't imagine the kind of regret that would come with actually loving him and making that same mistake."

"It's not that easy."

"I know, sugar cake. I know. But lots of things aren't easy, and they're usually the best things, right? I mean how awesome was it last year when you guys did the Fountain of Troy? And that was pretty fucking difficult, wasn't it?"

"Yeah, but there's a big difference between a cheer and a—a whatever this is."

Brewster shrugs. "I know. I just don't want to see you make the same mistake I did. And I really don't want to see Downey get hurt 'cause he's gone out on a limb for you time and time again, Nick. The guy's bent himself over backwards and occasionally forwards trying to make this work with you and I just...don't want that to have all been for nothing. He's a good guy and he deserves better."

Nick swallows around the lump in his throat and nods. "I know."

Brewster pats him on the shoulder before getting to his feet and brushing the dirt carefully off his pants.

"I'm going to spend the night with my beau," he says. "So...if you promise to make it in the morning, you can sleep in my bed if you need to. I figure you and Downey need some time to think right now."

Nick nods. "Thanks."

He waits until Brewster is gone before opening his diary again and jotting down:

 _My thoughts are owned, subsumed, held prisoner by your hand  
I invested my power in you while not under my own control  
The weight of unmade decisions rests heavy on my shoulders  
And I shudder with it, I gasp for air underneath your tightening grip_

 _I beg for more shamelessly, spread before you  
Hacked open and laid bare  
You see more than I want you to—you see all  
Terror and need intertwine and I yearn—more_

He re-reads it, realizes it's shit, sighs, crosses it out, and heads back to the dorm.

When he gets there, he hovers by the door before giving Downey a pained look and moving to the other side of the room, curling up on Brewster's bed without pulling the covers down or undressing. He lies there, clutching his diary to his chest, and shakes, refusing to meet Shawn or Adam's questioning eyes.

All he wants is to lay down with Downey, to bury his face against Downey's chest and smell his skin. He wants the comfort that Downey's presence provides and it makes him shudder with need and fright.

The idea of wanting—needing—someone like this is completely irrational and Nick isn't used to it. He's always been self-sufficient, never needed or wanted anyone's help or assistance. He was awesome—he could do it on his own. But now? Now there's an ache inside him at the thought of losing Downey and it makes him wonder if he could go back to that, go back to being the self-sufficient guy who didn't need Downey's lanky arms and warm, sweet-smelling chest. He likes to think he could, but who knows? Lately it feels like he couldn't, and fuck if it doesn't make him feel like he's lost some of his power.

He finally drifts off into an uncomfortable sleep and tosses and turns most of the night until he feels warmth surround him. He dreams that Downey is holding him and that things are okay between them—that they can keep being together without the rest of this stress. It's one of the best dreams he's had in awhile and when he wakes up, there's an indentation in the bed beside him. He shoots a questioning look to Shawn, who nods in Downey's general direction and shrugs.

He catches up to Downey outside the dorm and stops him, staring wordlessly into Downey's sad, hurt eyes. He doesn't know what to say so he kisses him, fingers tangling in Downey's hair.

Downey's hands are comforting where they splay at the small of his back and he moves closer, sighing against Downey's lips before resting his forehead against Downey's shoulder.

"You were whimpering in your sleep," Downey says quietly. "And I couldn't...I had to do something. I'm sorry. I know you didn't want to sleep with me since you went to Brewster's bed, but—"

Nick covers Downey's mouth with his hand without even looking up.

"Thank you." He slides his hand down Downey's chest before groping blindly for his hand and threading their fingers together.

"You're—you're welcome," Downey stammers out.

"I want...I want you around, Downey. All the fucking time. And I just don't know how to deal with that. Okay? You know that, right?"

"Yeah."

"Okay," Nick sighs. "Then...I'm not avoiding you anymore."

He feels Downey nod.

"I think we should go have breakfast now," Nick adds, and releases Downey enough so that he can walk down the path to the mess hall, but he doesn't let go of his hand. If anything, he squeezes it tighter. He's just terrified and nervous and the only thing that he knows is that things are safe with Downey.

***

That night, Nick tells Downey he's going for a run and heads to the gas station down the street from camp. There's a pay phone there and he slips his quarters in before dialing his own phone number and waiting for his parents to pick up.

It takes three rings before his dad answers, "Hello?"

Nick hesitates, then leans against the building and says, "Hey, Dad."

"Nick," his father says happily. "How's camp? Everything all right?"

"Camp is fine," he murmurs. It's the best answer he's got, really.

"And the rest of it? You sound upset, son."

"It's..." Nick runs his fingers through his hair and shakes his head. This was such a bad idea.

"Nick, is everything okay? You didn't have a fight with Shawn or get hurt or anything? And things are okay with Downey?"

At the mention of Downey's name, a lump forms in Nick's throat and he shakes his head, trying to push it away.

"Nick?" After Nick still doesn't answer, Nick hears his father cover the phone with his hand before calling, "Sarah! I think you should pick up the phone. Something's wrong with Nick," in a muffled-sounding voice.

"Dad—" he starts to protest, but then his mother's voice fills the line as well.

"Nick? Honey, what's wrong?"

He slides down the wall until he's sitting with his knees drawn up to his chin and sighs. "Never mind."

"Is it Shawn?"

"No."

"Is it your team?"

"No."

"Did something happen with Downey?" his father chimes in.

"I—yeah."

"Oh, no," his mother says. "You didn't break up, did you? We haven't even gotten to meet him yet."

Yeah. They haven't, but not for lack of trying on their part. Nick told them he was dating Downey when he first got back from camp and ever since then, they'd been trying to get him to invite Downey over for a weekend. But the idea of letting Downey meet his parents...it was too much. Too real. Too...serious.

"No. I don't know. It's—" He shrugs helplessly. "I don't know what to do. He said he loves me and I'm the best thing that ever happened to him and I don't know what to do and it's your fault. Both of you."

His parents are silent for a moment before his father asks, "Our fault?"

"Yes. Yours. Especially you, dad. All I ever heard growing up was how mom was the love of your life and how your life would suck without her and how you'd just die if she left you and—and I don't want that to happen to me. I don't want to die if Downey leaves me."

"What? Nick—"

"No. 'Cause I wanted that and then I could never find someone to mean it with and then there was Downey only by then it was like...'Why can't I make this work? There has to be something wrong with me. Maybe I just can't have that,' and—and fuck, if that's what it's like, then I don't fucking want it 'cause I don't want to die when he leaves me."

"Nick, slow down," his father says. "Okay? Just slow down and breathe for me."

Nick groans and does so, taking slow, deep breaths before murmuring, "Okay."

"Downey said he loved you," his mother says thoughtfully, "and now you're upset?"

"Yeah."

"Well, do you feel that way about him? Because if you do, just say it back, okay?"

"Let him talk," his dad says gently. "Nick, can we go back to the why it's my fault? What exactly did I do to upset you?"

"You...you and mom are like, perfect for each other. You know? And when I was a kid, I saw that and I thought...'I want that.'"

"That's good, though, isn't it?"

"No, 'cause then...then you'd say that you'd be nothing without her. I mean...you don't have a real career, even. You have me and mom and...and what would happen if we weren't there? You said you'd be nothing. I never want to be nothing, Dad."

His father sighs. "Nick...that's not literal. No one literally dies if their partner leaves them. Your grandfather loved my mother more than anything else in the world and they were married for sixty-three years before she passed on, but you know what? After he mourned, he moved on. He met Adele and he was with her until he died. They were happy together. People say, 'Oh, you're my everything,' but they don't...they don't seriously _mean_ it. I love your mother and I never want her to leave me, but if she did...I'd find a way to move on with my life. I'd meet someone else. And I trust that she'd do the same with me. We've already agreed that if one of us dies, the other has our blessing to fall in love again. It's not...it's not a serious statement, Nick. It's a turn of phrase to let the person we love know that they mean a lot to us. Your mom isn't really my everything, and I'm not hers. She has her job and her friends, and I've got my web business and you and friends."

"Exactly," his mother agrees.

"But even then...what makes you think Downey would leave you, son? He sounds like he cares at lot about you."

"Because...because I went looking for that, Dad. You and Mom fell in love in high school and I thought...I wanted to find her. She had to be there and she wasn't and...and I _tried_ and I could never make it work with a woman. And Downey's the first person I've ever known that—that it seemed possible with."

"Honey," his mother says softly, "it didn't work with girls because you're gay. You know that, right?"

"Yeah, I figured that out, but...but what if that wasn't the problem? What if it's me? What if—" He chokes back the tears that are rising in his throat and scrubs at his eyes, refusing to cry. "What if I can't make it work with anyone? And—and I let him be my everything and then he leaves me and I'm nothing?"

"Nick, baby..." his father sighs. "You could never be nothing. Even if Downey left you, which I don't think he would, like I told you—you'd dust yourself off and try it again. No matter how much you love someone...you're still your own amazing person. I mean...that's reality, Nick. All that can't live without someone stuff...that's just fairy tales and Shakespeare."

Nick feels the tears start to run hotly down his cheeks and he sniffles pathetically, trying to make them stop.

"Oh, Nicky," his dad says. "Don't cry. Baby, don't cry. It's okay. It's okay to love him. I had no idea you felt this way. I wish you'd have told me. I'd have told you this sooner. If you care about him, then you should tell him."

"Do you?" his mother asks gently. "Love him, I mean."

Nick gives up on holding back tears and just sobs into the receiver until he can choke out a strangled, "Yes."

The line is silent for a long moment before his mother adds, "Then your father is right. Tell him. You don't have to give up your entire being to be with him, Nicky. You'll still be just as amazing if you ever break up as you are now."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," she answers. "Your father is the best thing that ever happened to me, after having you, but if things ended between he and I tomorrow...I'd go find someone who made me happy, and I know he would, too. It doesn't mean we don't love each other, Nick. That's not what love is. I'm sorry you fell under that wrong impression. Love is just...finding the person who makes you the happiest and saying to them...'I want to make you happy, too.' And if the time comes where you ever _stop_ making each other happy...then you wish them all the luck in the world and try to stay friends. Hopefully that doesn't happen, but if it does...it's not the end of the world."

"I don't—I don't know how to—"

"Just tell him how you feel, Nicholas," she says, slightly clipped. His mother always did have less patience with him than his father, but she still sounds concerned underneath the tightness in her voice.

He'd never say it to anyone other than his parents or maybe Downey—and fuck, that's terrifying to think about—but he loves them more than most guys his age love their parents and he finally admits, "I'm scared of...of it being real."

He hears his mother start to say something, then his father cuts her off and says, "Nick...it's already real. If you feel it and he feels it, then it's real whether you say it or not. Not saying it doesn't make it go away. It's still there. But at least if you say it...the two of you can deal with it together."

He sighs. That's not what he wants to hear. He wants an excuse to not do this, really, now that his usual suspects are falling apart.

"How can you want me to—"

"To what? Be in love? Everyone deserves love, Nick. Especially you."

He decides to try a different tactic. "What about that he's a guy? Why doesn't that bother you?"

His father sighs. "Nick, you're just grasping at straws now, aren't you? Of course it doesn't bother us. We love you and it hurt us for so long to watch you just...go through life closing yourself off to this that...honestly, I don't care if it's man, woman, or machine at this point. Anything that makes you happy and isn't justifiably illegal is just...so amazing. It honestly never occurred to me to care if Downey was a man or a woman because...Nick, I've seen you when you're talking on the phone with him and you think no one is looking. The smile on your face—all I've ever wished for you is that you'd find that kind of happiness, and you have. I don't care that Downey's a man. As long as he keeps putting that smile on your face, he's all right by me."

"Me, too," his mother agrees. "You're deflecting. I understand that you're scared, but trying to find an excuse to get out of this relationship isn't what you need."

Nick sighs. "I...I should go. He's waiting for me back at the dorm. I told him I was going for a run and he said he'd wait up for me."

"Okay," his father agrees. "You call us if you need us."

"And if things work out, you tell Downey that he's welcome to come spend the weekend at our house any time he wants, okay? We want to meet him."

"I—maybe," Nick mutters. "I gotta go."

"I love you," his parents chorus in unison, and he repeats it back—so easy to say to them, why not Downey?—and hangs up the phone.

The jog back to the dorm isn't long enough to clear his head, but Downey is waiting for him on the deck as promised and Nick joins him on the lounge chair, squeezing and shifting until they're practically glued together with Downey's back pressed against his chest.

"Everything all right back home?" he asks.

"Yeah. My uh—my parents said that I should tell you to come spend the weekend with us sometime because they...they want to meet you. They actually wanted me to this past year, but...but I never did."

Downey reaches a hand back and pets his hair. "I'd love to," he murmurs, "just as soon as you're ready to ask me without sounding like you're walking to the gallows." His tone is light and teasing but Nick doesn't think it's very funny.

"I think..." he says seriously, then shrugs. "Maybe. Yeah."

"Do you need to talk about what happened?" Downey asks, ignoring Nick's admission. "Or would you rather just keep it—"

"Can we go inside?" Nick asks.

"We can talk about something else," Downey says quickly. "I didn't mean to push—"

"I don't want to talk."

"Oh. Well...what do you want?"

"You," Nick answers, and Downey looks confused but he lets Nick lead him to their bed and work two fingers into him while Nick rocks against the small of his back, dragging his cock along Downey's bare skin.

"Shh," he warns when Downey whimpers into his own hand. "Don't want to wake anyone up."

Downey nods and pulls a pillow closer, using it to muffle his soft moans as Nick works him open. It's easy as fucking pie to press into him and murmur quiet words against Downey's skin. Downey is relaxed and pliant in his arms and Nick thinks about what he told his parents earlier as he fucks him. It had taken tears and yelling and frustration to get there, but when his parents asked him if he loved Downey...he'd said yes. And now, with Downey surrounding him in so many senses of the word, he thinks that was probably pretty accurate.

He doesn't tell him, though—he can't, not yet. But in his mind, he thinks this is the first time he's ever made love with Downey, and he wants Downey to know that, too.

"You're so amazing," he whispers into Downey's ear, quiet so no one else will be able to hear. "So fucking amazing, Downey. I wanna fucking drown in your smile, man."

He's babbling but he's close, so fucking close, and he closes his fist over Downey's cock, willing him to come so that Nick can follow.

He hates this being quiet shit because he knows Downey makes the most amazing noises when he's being fucked and they always make Nick come sooner than he wants. He wants to hear how good this is for Downey and not just for him but feeling it is good, too, and the twitching cock in his hand tells him what he needs to know.

He doesn't last long after that because Downey is sucking his fingers clean, licking his own come right off and fuck, it's too hot for Nick to handle so he bites down on Downey's shoulder and comes, fingers clenching uselessly against Downey's hipbones.

"You okay?" Downey asks when he's thrown the condom away and settled back into bed.

Nick shrugs. "Yeah." He traces idle patterns on Downey's arm and sighs. "I'm gonna take my diary and go for a run in the morning, okay? But I'll be back."

Downey nods. "Thank you for telling me."

Nick sighs and pulls Downey closer, huffing out a breath against his hair. "Hey, Downey?"

"Hmm?"

"Will...will you say it?"

"What?"

"It. Say it to me."

Downey raises one eyebrow at him curiously, but murmurs, "I love you."

Nick threads their fingers together and kisses Downey because he's not ready yet to start talking about how he feels. The scary stomach twist and flip going on in his gut is something he needs to figure out before he can give it a voice.

"Night, Nick," Downey murmurs against his lips, and then he's drifting off to sleep before Nick can answer. He sighs, watches Downey's breathing even out, and then falls asleep himself.

***

Nick glances up from his diary, watching as a group of girls walk by chatting idly. They're pretty and if this were a year ago, Nick might be tucking his diary away and chasing after them. Now...now not so much.

He turns his attention back to his diary and stares down at the empty page. He's always liked empty pages, even more than filled ones. Filled ones are past feelings, that's all. But blank ones are possibilities of things he hasn't felt yet. Things he _could_ feel. Things he could say.

He chews idly on the cap of his pen before jotting down a title at the top of the page. "Give You Me," he writes, then punctuates it with a question mark.

 _I am in love with you,_ he writes. _It's not even a question in my mind. I choked it out between gasped-for breaths on the end of a payphone in the dirt. I said it, it's out there, it's real. No taking it back, no trying to deny._

He hesitates, pen poised to scratch it out, but decides to leave it because however crude the language, the thought behind it is still true.

 _But I haven't let you in on it. I've kept my secret from you even as every reason I've ever had felt like it was falling apart. I've lied and I've hidden behind every defense I've got, and still...you somehow see right through me. I think you always have._

 _The smile you gave me the day I came back, when you knowingly told me that closet doors came in all shapes and sizes. You knew. You know now. I think you know. Do you? You give me that smile now and tell me you'll wait and my stomach twists in knots. I know that you look at me and can see it on my face; does everyone? Is it so obvious to everyone but me that you're the one?_

He sighs, thinking of Brewster and Shawn and even Bianca and his other teammates who have told him that he was in love with Downey. It seems hard to believe that just a week ago he was telling Bianca that she was wrong about Downey being his boyfriend. Now he's journaling about the fact that he's in love. Fuck, that's a lot to take in all at once.

 _I want to tell you all of this. I want you to know that no one else has ever even made me consider this before, but I think you already know. I do love you, but I'm scared at the thought of giving you that much power over me. That's what it is, you know. It's power. The power to be the best thing that's ever happened to me or the worst. You seem so eager to give that power to me, but I don't know how to gamble my heart. I've played it close to the vest for as long as I can remember and the thought of laying my cards on the table used to be beyond my comprehension. Now it's a possibility—even a likelihood—and I just wish I had the same confidence you seem to. Or maybe the same vulnerability._

God, this is hard to get out. He hates that writing it out and making it real is the only way he can deal with this shit, but it's the only way he knows how to handle it. It's what he's always done because if it's just in his head, it can still be imaginary. It can be theory. Once it's on paper, it's there, it's staring at him, and he has to deal with it because it's real.

 _I don't know, Downey. I know I'm going to tell you because at this point...I can't see a way I'll get out of this and not. My dad says it's already real if we both feel it—talking about it just makes it something we can share. I think it's the sharing it part that's scarier to me than the reality of it existing. It's...intimacy. It's partnership. It's admitting that someone else is on my level—is part of me. I think you're worth it. Aren't you? You feel worth it. You're—_

He stops and rubs at his temple with his free hand. Of course Downey is worth it. Downey is—Downey is everything in the way his dad was talking about last night. The real way and not just the fairy tale way that he thought he was supposed to feel.

 _The more I think about it, the more I wonder why I haven't just told you yet. I—I want to. I want to be in love with you. Hearing you say it to me last night wasn't scary like the first time. It was comfortable and warm and I felt safe. I feel safe with you. I always have. I think I could feel safe if I gave you everything. I think I can trust you with that. I just...still have doubts that I wish I didn't have. I still wonder when the other shoe is going to drop and I hope one day, I won't. I hope one day I'll be able to let go of my reservations with you. But until they do, I can't see being with you as anything other than a risk. Risks are my business, though. Go big or go home. And now...I think it's time for me to be a cocky bastard._

Nick stares down at the page, re-reading his own words. He's breathing hard like he's been running a marathon and he shudders with the force of his heart hammering in his chest. His fingers are shaking against the paper and he's unsteady when he gets to his feet.

He tucks the diary into his bag and hoists it onto his shoulders before setting off at a run. He's not headed anywhere in particular, but he knows he's not ready to go back to the dorm and run into Downey. He's still reeling with the knowledge that he has to do this, has to find it in himself to look Downey in the eye and act like giving him his heart isn't the scariest fucking thing he's ever done in his life.

Shawn told him once that he was a drama queen and only changed it to king after Nick kicked him in the shins. To be fair, they were nine at the time and kicking in the shins was still manly and not the biggest pussy move on the planet after sucker punching. Nick's reaction aside, Shawn had been pretty adamant that Nick invited trouble into his life, like he thrived on it or something, like it somehow made his life more interesting. Nick told him then that he was a fucking liar and they'd ended up wrestling on the floor but now he thinks Shawn might be right.

When he was a kid, he was an only child and he couldn't play with his dad because who actually thought that was cool? So he played with himself and not in the fun way he'd learn as a pre-teen. He'd made up stories full of action and adventure and drama to distract himself from the boring suburban life he was living with his comfortably employed parents who loved him very much and rarely, if ever, had a fight. His life was just _boring_ and he needed something to spice it up, so he told stories to keep himself occupied.

He wonders if that's how this whole thing he has about love started. If he made it up one day as a kid and then forgot it was just a fairy tale.

Doesn't matter except that it's time to stop being a drama queen now and grow the fuck up. Time to put away the stories and live in reality. Time to be a fucking whole person with sensitivity and empathy.

He jogs until he's starting to get tired, then doubles back and checks to make sure no one is in the dorm before hiding his diary under the pillow and grabbing a fresh change of clothes. He showers, changes, and puts on his best kissing ass face before tracking down Poppy and asking her for her finest bottle of wine. She snaps at him that she's not a fucking French café, she's got booze, she'll get him a bottle of whatever she can find, and he'll like it.

She's scary, so he nods and waits until she's out of earshot before grumbling about 'tween girls and the evil they can cause when they're not off obsessing over Zac Efron and Jesse McCartney, then scurries off when he hears her angrily shout, "I heard that!"

An hour later she's shoving the bottle of what looks like $20 wine into his hands and grabbing his cash before counting it three times just to be sure.

"It's Downey's favorite," she says when he doesn't stop staring at the bottle. "He doesn't have a lot of money, you know. It's not like he's ever tasted anything better. He's asked me for that kind before, okay? He likes it. Just go bob for his apple and he won't care about the wine anyway."

He stares at her until she shoos him off, clearly annoyed.

***

"So...Shawn said you wanted me to meet you at our spot on the field," Downey says, sounding amused. "Didn't know having fucked here once before made it our spot, but okay."

Nick watches him as he finishes crossing the distance to the blanket Nick spread out, waiting patiently while Downey settles himself next to Nick.

"What's going on, Nick?"

Nick frowns. "Don't act like you don't know. You know. You always know."

Downey shrugs. "I've got hopes, Nick, but that doesn't mean I ever let myself dream they're reality."

Nick sighs. Fine. He can say it himself.

"So...here's the thing."

"There's a thing involved. You have my attention."

"It wouldn't kill you to stop sounding so amused," Nick snaps.

Downey nods seriously. "I'm sorry. You're right." He takes Nick's hand and gives it a reassuring squeeze. "Go on."

"You...are very patient with me," Nick says. "You wait for me to catch up to you. You never ask about the people I hooked up with last year. You never seem to care that I'm...broken. Or...cracked. Or...that I'm off. Yeah. Off. That's better. You never seem to care."

"Nick—"

"No. It's true. But see...last year, when I first got back from camp, I was in this panic. I was fucking any and every girl who'd have me 'cause I had to prove that I was still a man. I felt...somehow less than, you know? I had to do the fucking and it had to be with a girl, and somehow...that would make what happened with you okay. Shawn tried to stop me, but...I did it anyway."

"I—"

"No," Nick repeats. "Because then we spent our first weekend together. That little inn with the old lady, remember? And being with you...fucking you...kissing you... _sleeping_ with you—it all felt right. Right like the stuff with girls didn't. So I came back and panicked again. And this time I decided that if I couldn't do it with girls, then I'd fuck every guy I could because it couldn't just be you. I couldn't let you be special. I couldn't let you mean anything to me. And then we met up again and it was that weekend you made me wear that plug the entire time and you'd just pull me down onto your cock whenever you wanted and I—I always wanted it, too. I'm not sure I ever went below half-hard that entire weekend, Downey. And I came back and I just...knew. I knew that panicking wasn't going to work anymore."

He bites his lip and shrugs. "Ask Shawn how many people I hooked up with after that second weekend. It's less than ten. I still had needs, you know, but it wasn't...I wasn't fucking to keep from thinking about you anymore. I was fucking 'cause I needed to get off and you weren't there to help to me. And...you know, I...I want it to come from you. Only you. I want you to be there so that all my orgasms can come from you, okay?"

"Nick—"

"I don't know how I'm supposed to say this," Nick admits, "so I'm just gonna say it. I love you and I don't want you to leave me 'cause I want all my orgasms to be 'cause of you from now on, okay? So you can't leave. It's never as good with anyone else, anyway. They never know what to do. So you have to be there because you can't—you can't leave me and if you do, you can't leave me like in the fairy tales. You just...you have to be with me."

"I don't want to leave you," Downey whispers. "I want...I want all that, too."

Nick nods. "Okay. Then...there. I said it. Now for God's sake, just fucking kiss me or something 'cause I've had enough of this talking about my feelings bullshit."

Downey chuckles. "Okay. No more talking about your feelings. Rather put your mouth to better use, anyway."

He's teasing but it's an out from the tension, so Nick takes it, grinning as he says, "Exactly."

Downey takes Nick's face in his hands and strokes his thumb across Nick's cheek.

"Thank you," he whispers, and then Downey's lips are on his and Nick sighs contentedly.

"It's okay," Downey murmurs. He moves his lips to Nick's forehead, pressing a light kiss there before adding, "You won't regret this, Nick. I promise." Nick's eyes flutter closed and Downey presses a kiss to each of his eyelids before moving back to his lips.

Nick loses himself in Downey after that, just kisses and licks and bites and sucks until Downey's inside him, marking out what's his from now on as Nick arches against him and chokes back breathless pants. They've got only the blanket for cover in case anyone walks by, but no one ever comes onto the field this late at night and Nick's pretty sure making love under the stars is his new favorite past time.

Downey gasps Nick's name against his ear, groaning as he bottoms out inside him. "Jesus, Nick," he sighs, and pulls Nick tighter against him until there's nothing but skin on skin.

Nick grips Downey's arm tighter and bites down on his lip as Downey fucks him, swallowing his own moans in a vain attempt to keep quiet.

"Can't believe I get to be with you," Downey murmurs against the back of his neck. "Wanted you so bad, Nick. And not just 'cause you're sexy. Wanted all of you."

"I am awesome," Nick admits, and it tickles when Downey laughs against his shoulder. "Now shut up and fuck. I did the emotion thing. It's time to play the game I want to play now."

"Okay," Downey agrees, nodding against him. He's pressed so close that Nick can feel every movement, every breath Downey takes, and it makes him wonder if he'll ever not think about how strange that is, if it'll ever stop being _weird_ in how _comfortable_ it is.

He relaxes against him and lets Downey maneuver him the way he wants, lets Downey make them both feel good like he always does. And he thinks about how he's going to have this for a good long while now, how Downey made him that promise. He smiles, then hides his face against his elbow so Downey won't see. He really doesn't want to explain to him why he's suddenly grinning like a lunatic.

He growls Downey's name low in his throat when he comes and it doesn't take much longer before Downey's following him over, choking out what sounds like a mixture of, "Nick," and a lot of curses all mixed together.

And the after part, when it's quiet and sleepy and Nick knows they have to go back to the dorm soon, but doesn't want to move from Downey's warmth, he knows that this will be okay. It won't be easy because he knows that he'll fuck it up eventually, but Downey gives him a smile that tells him everything he needs to know. Downey knows him better than he knows himself and when he fucks things up, Downey will be patient until he gets them put right again. He's always been patient with Nick and nothing will ever change that. It's a comforting thought and he lets himself drift off into a quick nap with a smile plastered firmly on his face.


End file.
